Nameless
by muaaimoi
Summary: Penny can't remember a time before The Agency. A time when she wasn't a weapon, when she didn't follow orders mindlessly. Shenny as always, although it is mostly friendship. Rating may change.
1. Chapter 1

Penny can't remember a time before The Agency. A time when she wasn't a weapon, when she didn't follow orders mindlessly. More of a robot than Sheldon had ever been, with her gun pointed at the only person she had ever truly considered a friend, having been ordered to shoot him, she wishes she did. Sheldon doesn't deserve to die.

But she's been ordered to shoot him, and so she will. Her handler's words echo in her head. Grey was the closest thing to a father she'd ever had, the closest thing to family. He was the only person she had ever known who knew exactly what she was. The person who had kept her sane for the last six years, who reminded her who she really was, Agent 13. All agents belonged to the Agency.

"Penny,"Sheldon whispers, eyes wide and terrified.

She pulls the trigger.

x

Sheldon notices because he's vigilant. That is the word for it, vigilant-not paranoid. Although he is aware that paranoid is what his friends consider him. It's not much to go on at first. Sheldon is meticulous when it comes to his electronics. Rigorous in his use and perfectly at home among the lines of code that make up his preferred programs.

He notices when junk code starts appearing more and more often. Notices the similarity. He has his own spiders, code spies in places where they technically shouldn't be. But he always wants to know. There always seems to be more to know, and so long as no one else knows about it, he's perfectly safe. He recognizes espionage, careful though it is.

x

The Agency had been disbanded.

She had been warned, it happened every decade or so for a few years at a time. Some new Senator was let in the know, the idea of specialized assassins raised from birth to kill and gather Intel bothered them. They raised a stink in front of precisely the wrong people, and The Agency was quietly and officially disbanded, despite the fact that it technically didn't exist. Her orders were to go to ground. Create a new identity, and wait for her handler to contact her once the agency was re-established.

Simple.

She'd done it before.

She had been younger then-it had been trickier as a child. Runaways with no one looking for them weren't very common in rural areas, and that was exactly the kind of place she'd been when she'd gotten the memo. Omaha, Nebraska. She had created a new persona. Called herself Amanda Gables, falsified some documents, and walked into the waiting area of a hospital. Someone from child protective services had been sent to look for a newly orphaned girl matching her description. She'd tearfully listened to condolences about her imaginary parents tragic car accident, and been entered into the foster care system. Playing preteen had been annoying, but no one who was supposed to watch her cared about anything she did, so it was easy to sneak out and keep up her training. If she got too soft, someone might take her out on her next mission. That was unacceptable-The Agency did not tolerate failure.

x

Sheldon considers his findings. He thinks about how much evidence he has, and those who would take him seriously. It's not the right people. Not people who would back up his findings, not when they are considered just as paranoid as he is. None of them are in positions power either. They would not be able to help him, or provide any useful resources.

If the conclusions he'd reached based on such little data became public knowledge he would be mocked. Behind his back and to his face. He'd long since lost the respect of his colleagues, if he'd ever had it in the first place. Unless he was speaking strictly of physics, no one took him seriously. If it reached the Universities gossip chain, he might find himself with less funding, or the target of pranks more mean spirited than usual. He would be inviting trouble for nothing.

He decides to keep it to himself.

x

It had taken two years for Grey, the name she'd thought up for her handler (though she would never call him that to his face; agents were only numbers), to find her a new assignment. The Agency had once again been up and running. Most people that knew about it did not agree with the methods it employed, but they also couldn't argue with results. Agents trained by the Agency were assigned a number in their infancy, and raised to be stone cold killers and spies. Their life expectancy wasn't very long, unlike their more official counterparts in the intelligence community. No one bargained if they were caught. Agents were loyal, and saw themselves as the dispensable assets they were. For an agent, nothing was more important than The Agency. They knew to take their own lives before they were tortured for information, knew that no one could know of the agencies existence, knew that they weren't people-merely weapons.

She was number thirteen, it was the only designation she had ever known. Names were aliases and charades, to be pulled on and discarded as needed. She hated the thought of being useless. She was used to moving, her anonymity was one of the most important things about her job. As an agent, her job was her life. It felt wrong not to be out there completing ops, just because her lifestyle had offended some high ranking government stooge. What she did was necessary, just as The Agency's existence was necessary. She saved lives-certainly more than she'd ended anyway.

But she would not be receiving missions while the Agency was disbanded.

x

He considers for a time that it's some rival, but none of the bait he manufactures is taken, logically the two remaining suspects are the Government, or some less than benevolent hackers. He hacks into the university server and deletes the spiders. They seem to be everywhere-even Leonard's laptop has them. He's a very big believer in being safe over being sorry.

He comes home to find a very polite letter disparaging his actions and asking him to cease and desist on his home laptop written on a word document. He spends the next six hours scouring his computers for the code that had let them through his firewalls. He never finds it. He re-installs all the programs running his laptops and takes another look at the Caltech servers. There are already new spiders.

Pure stubbornness ensures that he deletes them all again.

The next day there is a man in a suit waiting at his office. He hands him an envelope and Sheldon, after running every test he can think of on the envelope to insure that it is merely paper, discovers an exact replica of the previous letter.

x

She knew to stay in the state she'd last been contacted, to make it easier for Grey to find her. She spotted a piece of copper on the ground and decided that her new name would be simple, Penny. Her hair was naturally blonde, and her future exposure to the Californian sun meant it'd get blonder still. In her heels, short skirt, and tube top, she could have been any of the regular struggling actresses that were famous for immigrating to LA. Cover decided, she stepped into a sports bar, the Nebraska Huskers were playing on screen. She smiled and accepted when a tall, ruggedly handsome man offered to buy her a drink. He was cute, and as he struck up a conversation and told her he was from Nebraska, she giggled and exclaimed at the coincidence, so was she! She'd just dropped out of college, and she wanted to give acting a try. Kurt, the guy, told her all about how he wanted to be a stuntman, but was playing bouncer for now. She asked him if he knew where they were hiring. She'd just moved to California and was crashing on her friends couch. She let him think he convinced her to go home with him that night-and never left.

Kurt's Nebraska friends became her Nebraska friends and he never noticed. A quick Google search and a good memory gave her everything she needed to pass muster. Whenever she met people from Omaha, she merely smiled, convinced them they'd seen her around. It was easy-she knew how to talk circles around people, how to let their expectations of her be the disguise. She was pretty and blonde, super friendly and outgoing-of course she'd been a cheerleader. She'd even done junior rodeo a few times, maybe that's why she looked familiar. It was easy, people filled in most of the details themselves, she barely had to do any major lying.

It was just playing expectations. People had so many pre-conceived notions of one another. Maybe it was because of their secret faces they were so busy concealing, but they never seemed to take a really good look at anyone else. She'd been trained to read the signs and act the part, reflect back what they would think of her at a glance. Blondes, pretty girls, social butterfly, all established stereotypes-it was easy to pretend to be an open book. Just a pretty smile was sometimes enough for people to decide they knew exactly the kind of person she was. So long as she kept her back story straight no one would ever know any better, and that was only when they were actually listening and not too busy trying to impress her or be her friend.

x

Some government agency, he decides eventually. Not foreign, or the reaction to discovery would not have been so mild. The American Government was monitoring his university. As if the NSA weren't bad enough. He wonders who's data they are so interested in. Who's findings they are making use of, or planning to use.

He can't help but be curious. Of course he keeps looking into it. He's had dealings with the government before. It wasn't like it was dangerous...right?

x

It was three very long years before Grey found her again. She'd looked forward to finally leaving California before she was informed that her next assignment was in Pasadena. She'd done a very good job of establishing herself. Grey had ordered her to keep the guise, she'd been playing Penny longer than she had ever played anyone else before, and he'd decided she'd done a good enough job to be placed on a long term assignment.

A week later she'd 'caught' Kurt cheating on her and stormed out dramatically. She'd never needed those acting classes she religiously paid for. Grey had told her her target was Caltech University, all she needed to do was keep an eye out and ensure that none of their more sensitive materials were leaked. They'd had a few close calls with North Korea.

She rents an apartment next to some scientists that work there and hopes they will be quick to reassign her. She was tired of playing Penny.

**x**

**First order of business, many thanks to crazyshay77 for taking on the herculean task of being my beta, any mistakes are sneaky and mine.**

**I know I should be working on other stuff, and I have been trying-but it was really bugging me that Penny didn't have a last name and somehow this happened. It'll just be three chapters but I'm really digging the concept. I hope you guys like it-please let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

"Penny."Sheldon whispered, involuntarily.

He was going to die, and it would be Penny's bullet that killed him.

Sheldon has always been of the opinion that he is intelligent. It's his biggest defining characteristic. The one word he would use to describe himself. Over the years his genius has gotten him in and out of plenty of trouble. He has reached plenty of wrong conclusions, made plenty of mistakes, but he has always maintained that his evidence was substantial enough to lead him astray. These things happened, no matter how smart someone was. Even Einstein made mistakes, he knew someday one of his theories would be his version of the 'cosmological constant'. No one was perfect, it didn't mean he was unintelligent.

Standing in front of Penny, his neighbor, his friend and watching her point a gun at him felt like a revelation. He had spent the entirety of his life completely and utterly wrong. He had just walked into certain death on his own violation.

He was an idiot. A moron of the highest order.

Then Penny pulled the trigger.

x

Pasadena was boring. Getting access to the Caltech Server was cakewalk. Three days, a friendly dinner, and the copy of her own key was enough to have her neighbors hand theirs over. Of course she hadn't seen Sheldon's raid on the mess in her apartment coming. She'd been so relieved she'd kept all her more 'sensitive' materials in her room. She'd railed at them about it and got her key back. Sheldon of course asked for his key back as well, but by then she'd already made a copy.

The easy excuse of needing milk was ready in case they caught her in their living room, but it was never a problem. Sheldon, and by virtue of being his roommate, Leonard kept to a schedule so rigid that Penny didn't actually need subterfuge. But her training demanded it. Her training was especially effective in regards to Leonard and his friends, whose eyes were usually trained on her pretty face and hints of skin. So busy dreaming up everything she could be to them that they almost never bothered to look at what she actually was.

Sheldon was paradoxically easier, and much more complicated. Sheldon wasn't easily distracted, tank tops and boy shorts never held the whole of his attention. He didn't know she was an agent; wasn't looking for any deception. Plus he thought she was an idiot, but when he spoke to her, he was speaking to Penny. Not the pretty girl next door, not the hot blonde, not the socialite. There was no role in his head for her to play to. In front of Sheldon she had no choice but to be Penny. It made the role more solid in her head, as though she really was Penny; as if she wasn't actually playing a role but truly living this life. Like she really was some hot headed community college drop out from Nebraska, busting her ass as a waitress and trying to make it in showbiz.

She's particularly grateful when they all signed up for the arctic thing. Four months had been plenty of time for a few short ops. And she rather desperately needed the break from playing Penny. She needs to remember who she truly is; Agent Thirteen.

x

He starts hunting the perpetrators. Know thy enemy is the kind of adage he believes in. It's slow going. Of course it is. Being careful means going slowly. The government en mass is made up of many letter agencies and quite a few are 'unofficial', so to speak. The ones that are widely known the CIA, and FBI, are too well know to risk operating in such a manner. But he's kept an eye on enough 'secret' operations over the years to know the markers he is looking for. In his experience it always comes down to the money. Where it's actually going and where paper pushers claim it has gone.

Sheldon has always had something of a gift for math. And he can afford to be careful. The spiders are viral, infiltrating almost every network that hooks up to the Caltech serves. It's the sign of a longstanding operation. Whoever these people are-they aren't going anywhere. He can take the time he needs to be sure he isn't caught of guard again.

Let them think they had won. They could have the first round. He would win the war. All he had to do was find them.

x

Dating Leonard is easy camouflage. Camouflage she ends up needing, because someone is on to her. The deletion of her spy codes was a pretty big clue. It doesn't take long to figure it out though. Sheldon. Of course it would be Sheldon. He's the only one who ever made things difficult. Leonard would gladly give her the moon if she could get him to think it was his idea-But Sheldon was a completely different animal. Her wiles didn't work on him. Not the way she wanted them to anyway. He seemed kind of confused after checking her out sometimes. As though he didn't understand what he'd just done. But Sheldon's inability to understand regular human behavior wasn't the issue. His inability to give up was. She needed to scare him off. Shut down his curiosity before he got it into his head that it would be okay for him to intervene.

She'd never failed an op before. She wasn't going to start now. So she'd started playing cat and mouse with Sheldon. Shuck into their living room just before he got home to leave a politely threatening missive she left open on his laptop. Knowing Sheldon, he'd think for sure he'd been hacked. He'd get all in a tizzy trying to find the non existent spyware. While he was confused and flustered, it would be time to strike.

He deleted all her spy codes again and she paid one of the guys from one of her old acting classes to pretend to be a government agent. Rented the tux for him and told him it was for a prank. That she was trying to freak her neighbor out. Her prettiest smile and a few hundred bucks later, Alex, the guy, handed Sheldon an exact replica of the letter. He'd had dealing with government agencies before. From a very young age even, according to his mother, quite a few had a standard operating procedure in regards to Sheldon. She decided to emulate their style. Then he'd know the line drawn in the sand. That a third strike would mean business. That his safety was at risk if he insisted on meddling.

Of course she could call Grey in. Have him remove Sheldon without the threat of compromising her cover. But the very idea was ludicrous. It was Sheldon, sure the guy was too smart for his own good, but he was harmless. Hell, without him she would have never fleshed out her cover as completely as she had. Would have never had to consider all the bit's and pieces that had made Penny real enough to pass muster for years. He was more help than a hindrance.

And if a little voice in the back of her head considered him a friend and didn't want him hurt? Well. That part didn't need to go on her report.

x

Sheldon's social circle grew slowly but surely. He would like to think that that is the reason behind his failure, but it would be a lie. The agency interested in his university had proven particularly elusive. That wasn't to say that Sheldon hadn't found other agencies. Many of which the government would never admit to financing, or the awareness of their existence even. They merely weren't the right one.

There was one in particular though. One he'd heard whispers of. One only vaguely hinted at that might possibly have some involvement. But it's like trying to catch smoke. He can find the silhouette. Pieces of data that indicate general shape of what he's looking for, but he can't seem to find any substance. No hard facts or clear indicators.

It slowly become a personal quest. The idea of finding the agency and revealing their spying is a distant daydream. Now Sheldon simply wishes to find it. To prove to himself without doubt that they exists, however illegally. So he doesn't tell anyone, not Leonard and Penny, not Howard, Bernadette, or Raj, who he now works with, not even Amy.

It's become a question of skill. His pride demands he find them, no matter how many years it takes.

x

Penny doesn't expect it to work off the bat.

Which is why she's on her guard and paranoid enough to constantly monitor Sheldon's laptop. Dating Leonard is her usual way in-every time she catches just a hint of something. It's not usually conclusive, but fuck it, Sheldon isn't the smart one in a group of geniuses for nothing. She does her best to distract him, especially when presented with someone like Amy, whose puppy like behavior makes her terribly easy to manipulate. She doesn't even consider feeling bad about it. Manipulating others in order to reach their objectives were simply what agents were trained to do.

Besides, Amy saw her as a popular girl from high school who was finally her friend mixed with a sexual object. It's almost exactly the way Leonard used to see her before they had sex, but as Amy is a woman, and either unaware or in denial about her attraction to women, the relationship was different. It seemed Amy was readily willing to consider herself Penny's best friend. She was exactly the kind of person Penny's training worked on best. Much like with Leonard-it was almost too easy. They were so certain in their convictions, they practically fooled themselves.

Bernadette was a little tricky on occasion the same way Sheldon was. She actually looked at 'Penny'. And it had gotten to the point where Penny was too easy to put on. When the mask sometimes felt like herself. When, sometimes, she was home alone and forgot she wasn't Penny. Took her a while to remember that she was more than a wannabe actress. More than a pretty neighbor. That she was Agent Thirteen.

And then she got proof that Sheldon really hadn't given up. Because he was closer than anyone had ever been to finding the agent's produced by the Agency.

x

Sheldon considered his social circle. Almost six years of his life and it had finally dawned on him that they had an agent nearby. That there was someone monitoring him closely. Too closely to be confined to the world of the internet. It had to be someone with regular access to his domicile.

Amy is out of the running merely because she was the last person introduced into his circle. She was far too late to be the person who had first placed all of the spiders. He considered the rest of his friends. And not a few of his enemies. Winkle in particular he could have easily seen as the culprit.

When he really thought about it, when he analyzed the date without letting his perceptions of the people around him get in the way...Penny was the best candidate for the infiltrator.

But the very thought was preposterous.

Penny wasn't a spy. Wasn't dangerous. Was she?


End file.
